Luxembourg and Bruxelles

Behold the one and only Manneken Pis, the symbol of Brussels

I’m having a really hard time comparing this past week to our previous trip to Prague and Berlin. Both were extremely different in the things we did, what we saw, and the cities that we visited. Though I can confidently say that I had such a wonderful (albeit exhausting) week between Luxembourg, Brussels, and Paris. Paris will have to be its own post in itself, solely because we did so much in the short time we had (and I need to recount our flaming fondue experience). This trip was significantly more academic than the last one, and we were in business formal attire every day for these institutions that we visited (Saturday was so nice not having to dress up). But alas, I digress. So let me begin this story with my poor packing skills, a 4-country bus-ride, and the European Investment Bank (EIB).

Shenanigans on the bus (oh hey Jack)

I hate packing. Really I don’t think hate is a strong enough word. Loathe may be more appropriate. I will procrastinate packing as long as possible, and then I stress out about it because I do it last minute. So trust me, this trip was no different. After my dinner with everyone last Sunday, I watched 2 episodes of Dexter with my roommates and Elise in an attempt to put off packing. Therefore it was about 1am before I even opened up my suitcase (with a 6:25am departure the next morning). Packing the business formal was easy because you don’t have many options to begin with when it comes to that. But then I also needed regular clothes, going out clothes, toiletries, etc. And mind you, this is for a week long trip…in a carryon and backpack. By 2:30 I was finally done, and looking at my handiwork, I realized that I simply do not understand the meaning of packing light…at all.

Ugh it's always such a struggle

So we found a playground in Lux...it was terrifyingly fun.

The bus ride to Luxembourg was luckily uneventful. I slept until we were in France where we were supposed to visit the St. Avignon military cemetery. But thanks to the US gov’t shutdown it was closed (see, it affected us abroad as well!). After a break at some random bus station, I fell back asleep until we arrived in Luxembourg (the city)! Now I had visited Luxembourg before with Erika and DW, so there wasn’t really anything that I needed to see. So we walked around, they got lunch (I had packed one) and then we went to Oberweiss and each got a macaron (I got coffee flavored, yum!). Afterwards, Rin and I had to head back to go to the EIB. Our speaker was the Press Officer and it was a very interesting presentation, solely because we have nothing like the EIB in the States. It was a good hour and a half long session there, and then we left to go to Brussels!!

Hello Luxembourg!

Inside of Oberweiss

Jimmy and I looking pretty spiffy at the EIB

The room was pretty official (we had our own mics), oh and it was straight our of the 70s - orange carpet.

We arrived around dinner time to heavy traffic and rain. After settling in at the hostel, we made our way to go get dinner. One of the IES Abroad supervisors had recommended this one restaurant, Chez Leon,  for mussels (because mussels in Brussels is apparently very popular). IT WAS SO GOOD! Basically this week was heaven when it came to food. After dinner, Rin and I went back since it had been such a long day, thus concluding Day 1 of our trip. 

Mussels, fries and beer. Yum. 

Day 2 I was actually able to start the day off in casual attire, as our first meeting of the day was with Open Europe, a think tank with an office in Brussels. Our speaker was fascinating - and quite good looking hehe - because he is the only speaker I've had who was openly Euroskeptic. I have my doubts about the future of the Eurozone, and he voiced all of the doubts that I had been having. After that we had a walking city tour of Brussels and our guide gave a pretty good tour, historical and everything. 

Turtle selfie. It was cold. 

 

Just one of the few beautiful buildings (albeit asymmetrical) at the Grand Place

After a quick lunch, we were allowed back into our rooms at the hostel to change into business formal before we went to the Council of the EU. Our speaker was Head of Unit, DG of Foreign Affairs, Enlargement and Civil Protection. He had a great sense of humor and was quite articulate and insightful. Enlargement policy in the EU is one of the policies that I find very interesting and relevant to now because of the Eurocrisis. We also got our picture taken by the official photographer so we should end up on their FB page soon!

At the Council of the EU!

Just reppin' Austria, nbd. (I'm the Foreign Minister for our Model EU)

 After our meeting, we proceeded to go back to the hostel, change and go out for food and beverage. Elise and I found this great little corner cafe to eat at, had some interactions with a Jamaican and his guitar and a homeless man on the steps of the Stock Exchange, and then proceeded to go to this bar Celtica because they had a 2 Euro beer happy hour! It was also the Belgium vs. Wales qualifier game for the World Cup so needless to say it was pretty packed with diehard Belgium fans. A sizeable group of us found our way there, and decided to relocate to the upstairs bar where the less popular England vs. Poland game was on. Emma and I had a good life chat, drank some great Belgian beer, and when I thought we were going to leave for the club, the DJ started playing and the bar area quickly turned into a dance floor. The DJ played some great music and I had a blast dancing until some pretty creepy Belgian men started closing in on the group...we left shortly after. Instead of going to the other club, we decided to just head back. OMG on the way back I'm pretty sure we walked through a crime scene!!! There was blood all over the ground and splattered on this white barrier and a little ways on there were bloody clothes surrounding the trash can. It was so scary! Don't worry, I didn't have any nightmares though.

I just thought the Opera House looked super pretty that night. 

Wednesday (Day 3) was nice because 1) I was able to sleep in 2) I only had one meeting 3) I got free lunch. Our meeting was fairly dull in my opinion as it was with the DG Agriculture for the EC. And personally, I could care less about agriculture; I would rather had it been about US-EU trade in general. Afterwards we had our reflection session during lunch, which turned out to be 15 minutes of reflection and then an hour long debate about immigration in the EU. Whoops.

European Commission sign (kinda had to take a pic)

Our teensy-tiny conference room

After getting back to the hostel, changing, Mayaan and I met up with Emma to go to the Cantillon brewery. It brews and sells Lambic beer and has been doing so for the past 100 years in the same building. It was a really cool brewery, and yes we did sample. But with this beer, it's pretty sour tasting because it undergoes spontaneous fermentation (so it ferments 1-3 years). Definitely not my favorite, but it was neat nonetheless.

I <3 beer

It was sour cherry flavored! Hence the red color. 

For dinner, we were super indecisive and had to be convinced by this meteorologist from Alabama to eat at this Italian place after he heard us bickering. Ma and I split parmesan fondue that turned out to not be fondue, but I got free wine out of it so I'm not complaining! Afterwards I got my first Belgian waffle. Heaven in my mouth, my goodness. Walking through the Grand Place was also so beautiful at night with all the building lit up. We then went to Delirium, which is one of the coolest bars I've ever been to (they have over 2000 kinds of beer to choose from!). I had a drink before we went back to the hostel, calling it an early night since we had to checkout so early.

The Grand Place at night!!!

OMG this waffle though. I can't even. 

At Delirium with Ma 

On Thursday (day 4), we made our way to the Commission, and had two different speakers there (I preferred the first one personally as he talked about economic affairs). After a solid morning at the Commission, we grabbed a quick lunch (and bus food) from a supermarket before heading to the Permanent Representation of the Republic of Poland to the EU (a long name, I know). This was for my Transition to Market Economies class and our speaker really didn't talk about Poland and its economy whatsoever, but more so what they do in Brussels. But he also threw in little quips about Buddhism and the Big Bang. Luckily for us, we got out half an hour early which gave us enough time to grab one last waffle before getting back on the bus to head to Paris!!

At the Commission!! 

I think we were both shocked with how professional this selfie was.

Brussels was indeed full of a lot of speakers and meetings, so there wasn't all that much free time. Though I have to remind myself that I am actually here for school and to learn, so I probably shouldn't complain too much about listening to a speaker for an hour and a half. Especially when these people interact with Heads of State pretty often, which in my opinion is pretty dang cool. 

Song of the Trip: Garden Gnome by Julie Slonecki (she's my Great Great Grandbig!)

Best Meal: Are waffles considered a meal? Because that waffle (pictured above) was actually the best. Whipped cream and chocolate. Yum. Super messy though so grab some extra napkins.

Gelato: SPECULOOS GELATO. It was pretty pricey because I bought it from a stand in the mall (2 Euro), but it was soooo worth it. 

Brussels Must Do: Go to the Grand Place at night. It's breathtakingly beautiful. And then go grab drinks at Delirium.

Brussels Don't Do: DO NOT WEAR HEELS AROUND GRAND PLACE. The cobblestones there...I'm surprised I didn't fall on my face. 

Shenanigans with the Roomies

So this past week was an eventful one in my apartment! We finally have a full apartment (ok well Louisa is still in Southeast Asia until Friday), and it’s an even split with 3 guys and 3 girls. I’ve already mentioned David as he was the first to move in. He was shortly followed up with the arrival of  Patryk (he’s Polish) and the return of Paul (another German). All of my roommates are really good about only speaking German with me except for David because he wants to practice his English. I mean I’m pretty ok with that, and I think that’s why we’ve become fast friends. Birgit has really opened up this past week, and it’s probably because more Germans are living in the apartment again or maybe it’s that I’ve told her to only speak in German with me. Either way, it’s so nice to come back to my apartment and have people to interact with. They’re all so nice and friendly and I feel truly blessed with my living situation.

Other events of note this week was my discovery of the running paths next to the river near my dorm which really does turn out to be a beautiful run. There are lots of really cool bridges and graffiti. Oh and have I mentioned that it’s finally autumn here? The leaves are all starting to turn and I’ve actually had to break out the peacoat this week. And it hailed this week! Like what? The two times I’ve seen hail this year have both been in Germany, pretty odd if you think about it.

Fall in Freiburg!

Ok well back to the roommates! So David had his friend Fynn come stay with him this week so I hung out with them quite a bit. They even cooked for me! On Wednesday I was out in the city shopping with Emma (well I was mostly window shopping while she purchased business attire) and we were just walking and happened to run into them. First they offered this chocolate-toffee candy called Toffifee which is delicious, and then they invited me to eat with them! So by the time I was done with clothes and food shopping, I came home to a dinner already on the table. This was followed by a round of Mario Party on David’s Gamecube, and just some really fun company. Quite often they forced/coerced me into playing a round or two of Super Smash Melee as a homework break. Trust me, it never took much convincing. Basically, to sum up why I think David is so awesome:

1. He watches Dexter
2. He plays Super Smash and insists that I play with him
3.  He likes hanging out with me and my friends
4.  He plays guitar
5. He thinks I’m a great cook/wants me to give him cooking lessons (talk about ego boost!)

He’s also great at not making things awkward when I come out of the bathroom in my towel and happen to run into him. Sharing a bathroom with two boys is a learning experience in itself, that’s for sure. I’m so used to living with only girls where I would walk all the way from the bathroom to my room in just my towel and never have to worry about interacting with a male. Whereas now, I secretly pray that no guy is in the hall before I dash to my room. But overall, I really like living with guys. It’s a great experience for me as it teaches me what I can kind of expect later down the road when I’m actually living with a significant other.

Let’s see, to highlight my other roomies: Birgit has really opened up a lot, I’m pretty sure soup is her favorite food, and she bakes a lot of cakes (yum). She’s super sweet and always curious as to how my trips are. Paul is from Berlin and is always really interested in talking to me, especially about politics. Just last night we got into a discussion about the government shutdown and the debt ceiling. I had all my roommates do a poll about the EU for my POL 350 seminar, and since then he’s really been interested in learning more about EU politics. Patryk is quite soft-spoken and seems pretty shy, but I’m trying to engage him in more conversations when I see him in the kitchen. Oh and on that note, I’ve basically made the kitchen table my desk/the kitchen is now my second room according to David. Hehe oh well.

Elise also has new roommates as well, but the only one I’ve met is Doro. She’s a first year (they call them “Ersties” here) and is so bubbly and sweet! Elise and I were doing a soup night when I met her, so she ate with us and is just adorable. We hung out at their place Friday night as well and when everyone else decided to go out, David, Elise, Doro and I all stayed in and talked till about 2:30 before we decided it was bedtime. The following morning I had promised everyone Belgian Waffles, so Doro, Elise, David, Birgit, Paul and Jared all got to sample my waffle making skills. I don’t know if I’ve ever done homemade waffles, but they turned out awesome! Then that evening Elise, David and I all went out to this club StuSie which is not even a 10 minute walk from my dorm – so super convenient. It was a late night as I didn’t get back till probably around 4:30, but it was a great time.

Sunday was sleeping in, FaceTiming and Google Chatting my loved ones, and preparing dinner for about 12 people (remember, I’m the ultimate hostess). I made French onion soup (my fav soup) and salad. Oh and chocolate chip cookies which were a huge hit with the boys (I think Anders and David had about 4 each). The cookies were great because it’s just that little taste of home that I had been craving. I had the Berliner kids over, and invited all my roommates over to eat with us as well and I think it went really well. I try to include my roommates in almost everything that I do, and I think that they really like that I try to make such an effort to include them and interact with them.

These international relationships are something that I really treasure, as I did not have the same relationship with my roommates this past summer. But I’ve learned that I have to put the effort forward first, if I want to build these relationships. This is why I’m the one to knock on their doors and ask if they want to eat with me. And as a result, I see them reciprocating more and more. David knocks on my door just to talk to me about my day, invite me to watch Dexter, or simply to just say good night. They were all so interested in my upcoming trip to Luxembourg, Brussels and Paris, so I think I may just have to come back with a few sweet surprises for them! :)

One of the many bridges

Song of the Week: The Mother We Share by CHVRCHES

Meal of the Week: Definitely my French onion soup!

Highlight: Soup night with Elise and Doro! It was such a great time cooking with those girls.